Aidan (Aedan) (d. 651), monk of Iona, first bishop and abbot of Lindisfarne. Nothing is known of his early life except his Irish origin; Bede is virtually the only source. Aidan came to England in 635 when Oswald, who had become a Christian during exile at Iona, had regained the throne of Northumbria from Mercian invaders. He looked to Iona for help in the work of conversion: first a severe monk was sent, who soon returned complaining that the Saxons were uncivilized and unteachable; he was replaced by Aidan, who enjoyed a reputation for discretion and prudence.
Oswald gave him the island of Lin-disfarne, close to the royal palace of Bamburgh, better suited for evangelizing Bernicia (Oswald's power-base of northern Northumbria) than York and the southern kingdom of Deira, evangelized by
After Oswald's death in 642 Aidan supported King Oswin of Deira and enjoyed his personal friendship. Once Oswin gave him a fine horse, but soon Aidan gave it away to a poor man. During Lent he retired to the Inner Farne Island for prayer and penance; from there in 651 he saw Bamburgh being burnt by Penda, the militant king of Mercia, and prayed successfully for the wind to change. But Aidan did not long survive the death of Oswin at the hand of Oswiu, who soon reunited Bernicia with Deira. Aidan died at Bamburgh and was buried at Lindisfarne in the cemetery. Later his bones were translated into the church. Some of these were removed to Ireland by Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, when he retired to Ireland after the Synod of Whitby.
After the sacking of Lindisfarne by the Vikings in 793 and subsequently, Aidan's memory was somewhat eclipsed, not least by that of Cuthbert. But in the 10th century Glastonbury monks obtained some supposed relics of Aidan; through their influence Aidan's feast appears in early Wessex calendars, which provide the main evidence for his cult after the age of Bede.
Bede, 80 years after Aidan's death, wrote more warmly of him than of any other saint. Even though he could not approve Aidan's acceptance and propagation of the Irish method of calculating Easter, he praised him for his love of prayer, study, peace, purity, and humility as well as for his care of the sick and the poor. It may be that Bede used the example of Aidan as an implicit reproof of the bishops of his own time and that he exaggerated the extent and depth of his apostolate. For rather different reasons, both Irish and Anglican scholars of the 19th century did so even more. The parish church of Bamburgh is the only ancient English church dedicated to him. Feast: 31 August; translation, 8 October.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- Bede, H.E., iii. 3–6, 15–17, 26; B. Colgrave, ‘The Times of St. Cuthbert’ in The Relics of St. Cuthbert (ed. C. F. Battiscombe, 1958); H. Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (1972), pp. 94–9
